Friday, January 25, 2013

Showing Our Work to Our Legislators

Maryland lawmakers have begun their annual legislative
session in Annapolis with many pressing issues on the agenda, from finances to
gun control. Perhaps the most pressing issue however is
healthcare – it affects each and every Marylander and is a huge source of
budgetary stress.

I had the privilege this week of welcoming two of our
District 42 legislators, Senator Jim Brochin and Delegate Susan Aumann, to GBMA
Hunt Valley, our site that has been operational as a patient centered medical
home for the longest time. Among those
joining me were Harry Johnson, the GBMC HealthCare Board chair; Jim Stradtner,
chairman of the board’s Strategic Planning Committee; Mark Lamos, M.D.,
physician at the Hunt Valley practice and president of Greater Baltimore
Medical Associates; and Robyn Schaffer, Hunt Valley practice manager.

The presentation, “What
Is The GBMC HealthCare System Doing To Create A Better System Of Care For Our
Region”, highlighted our efforts over the past few years to transform care
to be better coordinated and to increase value through the eyes of the patient. We reminded Senator Brochin and Delegate
Aumann about the capabilities of our wonderful hospital, our outstanding
surgeons and specialists, and our award-winning Gilchrist Hospice Care. We then
shared with them how we’ve launched Greater Baltimore Health Alliance (GBHA), that
joins private practicing physicians with GBMA doctors in alignment towards the
quadruple aim of better health, better care, lower cost and more joy for those
providing the care. We shared how the medical homes have implemented electronic
medical records; how they have expanded their hours of care; how they have used
the patient portal myGBMC to improve
communication and how they have begun to provide care in new ways – like group
visits for diabetics.

I shared how the United States of America has the most
expensive healthcare in the world; that the costs are putting extreme financial
pressure on our state and country and making it difficult for small businesses
to compete but isn’t yielding better results for patients than healthcare in other
countries that spend much less of their GDP.
(Health expenditures in the United States are more than 18 percent of
GDP while in Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom the
expenses range between six and 12 percent).

We absolutely have
the best trained doctors and nurses in the world, and they work very, very hard,
but they work every day in a broken system that is clearly not the best
healthcare system in the world if the measure is value for what people pay. If someone is in a motor vehicle crash and
they need immediate access to emergency services, or they have a heart attack,
the best place for them to be is in America.
But our national system just doesn’t manage chronic diseases very well
and that has to change. We have got to
get better at coordinated, evidence-based care.

These elected officials now know that the GBMC HealthCare
System is working hard to provide the
citizens that they serve a better healthcare product.

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